The weight scales at Cape Girardeau’s waste transfer station have been broken for a month, and this isn’t the first sign that the 20-something year old facility is reaching the end of its functional life.
The station’s floor has to be replaced every five years or so, it’s inefficient, and many of the structural beams and siding needs to be replaced.
There’s no sewer, so any stormwater that comes into contact with waste must be collected in a pit and later transported to the waste water treatment plant.
Cape Girardeau public works director Tim Gramling said it either needs to be replaced or rehabilitated.
“One of the things that makes it difficult about rehabilitating the existing facility is because it is a business, to do rehabilitation like you need to, you would have to shut it down for significant periods of time, which again takes away from your revenue and causes interruption for the people who want to use and that type of thing,” Gramling said.
Gramling says cost estimates for a new transfer station run between $3 and $5 million. A station on the high end of the cost spectrum would incorporate a new recycling station. Rehabilitating the current station would cost between $3 and $3.5 million.
Gramling said there are several options for funding, like capital improvement sales tax money or including the cost of construction into the next contract with the company that hauls the waste to the landfill.
“There’s different options right now," Gramling said. "We’re still trying to explore all those and see which one is most beneficial. The main goal is to try to do it without increasing the rates to pay for it.”
The city’s trash trucks, commercial haulers, and individuals bring their refuse to the transfer station on South Sprigg Street. From there, a larger truck takes the waste to a landfill. The weight scales will be repaired next week.